


That Beggars May Ride I

by sageness



Series: Dreaming the Mythic Age [4]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Canon - TV, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-01
Updated: 2003-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageness/pseuds/sageness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Kents in Autumn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Beggars May Ride I

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Nymphaea1 and Ms_Hecubus.

"Clark?"

"Yeah, mom?" He groaned at the sound of his mother's voice calling from below. Whatever it was, he didn't want any. It was Friday afternoon, school was finally done for the week, and Clark was exactly where he wanted to be: home in his loft, lying on his ratty old sofa, thumbing through a magazine. It wasn't even a smart magazine. It was candy. Pure, delicious candy.

"Ah, there you are," Martha said, appearing on the landing. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing." He sat up.

Martha came over to the end of the sofa, looking at him curiously. "What are you reading?"

"_Maxim_."

"Oh really." Her voice had that carefully neutral edge that meant he'd probably catch her reading it later.

"What? It's just like _Cosmo_, except for guys."

She raised her eyebrows. "Since when do you read _Cosmopolitan?_"

"It was the only thing in the Torch office I hadn't read yet." Clark knew there was no real need for him to feel so sheepish, but he couldn't help it. Even after everything, she was still his mom. Naturally, it didn't help that Martha was shaking with barely controlled laughter, the expression on her face telling him he was still her baby whether he liked it or not.

Martha pressed a hand against Clark's shoulder and said, "I came up here to ask if you wanted to go into town with me. I thought we could get you some new shoes, and you need to get your work boots resoled again. Plus, I could really use your help with groceries."

Clark didn't have any good reason to protest, but telling her no because he'd rather spend some quality time with a hot photo spread probably wasn't going to cut it. "That sounds like I have to." He sounded like a petulant child even to his own ears.

"No, not if you really don't want to, sweetie. I could ask your father to go with me, but I thought it would be nice for us to spend some time together."

Clark frowned, relenting. He didn't know how his mother could be so sweetly corny and charmingly manipulative at the same time. She'd always been good at it. Maybe it was why she hadn't actually minded working for Lionel. He might be a complete bastard, but at least he'd given his mom an outlet besides marketing fruit and pie.

Getting his shoes on, he asked, "Mom, do you miss working?"

"Do I miss working?" she repeated back to him. "Well, I've got plenty to do around here, so it's not exactly like I'm on vacation."

"No," he faltered, "that isn't what I meant."

She looked at him softly. "I know, Clark. Come on, let's get going."

Clark followed her to the truck and climbed into the passenger side. "I just wondered if you..." He stopped. "Never mind." The words just didn't want to come out.

"I do miss it some days, actually. It feels good to be part of a larger process. Not that we don't have an important process here, but it's nice to feel like your actions affect things on a larger scale than one small town farm."

"And Lionel's scale is pretty big."

"Well, yes. You could say that. And that part of it was certainly very exciting. But we all realized how very dangerous it is, too, and in the end the risk to our family just wasn't worth it."

"Yeah, that's true, but didn't you like getting to go to Metropolis so much?"

"Not really, no."

"But...why not?" Clark was surprised. She had told him so many stories about the fun places she remembered from growing up in the city.

"Honey, I spent all my time at the LuthorCorp building or traipsing along after Lionel. I wasn't there to do the things I wanted to do. I was working."

Clark stared at her. He was trying to rectify his mental images of his mom the farm wife, with his mom Lionel Luthor's former executive assistant, with his mom a child of the big city. It didn't gel, but he wasn't sure why. "What would you have done if you could have?"

"Well, lots of things." She paused for a moment. "It would have been nice to have seen some old friends, things like that. You know," she interrupted herself, "you're going to have a very different experience with reunions and get-togethers because you have such a close-knit class. In the city, there's much less to hold people together."

"Mm-hmm," Clark answered noncommittally. He wondered if there was more to his mom's history than running away with his dad. Even with the rift with her father, it was strange to think of her leaving all her childhood friends behind.

"What else.... Well, shopping, of course. There are some great restaurants. Movies. Malls. Huge bookstores. Concerts. I...well, I suppose you know all that from the summer. I don't have to tell you what's there."

"Well, no, but that isn't really what I was asking, Mom."

"That's true." She sighed, turning from the country lane onto the main road. "You know, aside from things like going to the zoo as a child, I think my favorite memories of Metropolis are from college." Her voice took on a nostalgic tinge. "My friends and I used to go to parties, movies...there used to be the best ice cream parlor on 34th Street." She paused and glanced at him, the late afternoon sun bathing them in light. "What did you like best when you were there?"

"Oh, um. I don't know." His mind flashed with images of girls, guys, clubs, cars, drinking, stealing, running as fast as he could just for the thrill of it. "I was so high on the meteor rock, things didn't much register beyond an immediate level."

"Chloe found you in a nightclub."

"Yeah." He swallowed down the guilt that washed over him, remembering the way he'd threatened her if she told anyone. "I spent a lot of time in clubs."

"I did too, back in college."

Clark snapped his head up to look at her. "You did?"

"Yes, Clark." Martha laughed. "They were called discos back then, but we still had them. I'm not quite a dinosaur, you know."

"That's not what I meant." Clark wore a puzzled expression. "It's just really weird to picture you on the club scene."

"Well, I was a lot younger, then. And, in a way, it was a different life."

Clark nodded. "Because Metropolis was home."

"Yeah, something like that." She cleared her throat quietly. "I was in my element, so to speak."

"And now you're one of those 'reclusive Kents' who runs an organic produce farm."

Martha smiled and tilted her head at him, "It's a very different life from what I imagined when I was a little girl."

"Do you miss it?"

"I don't have any regrets, Clark."

"I know. You've said that before. But ever since I came back, I just..." Clark took a deep breath. "It's like I see the differences everywhere."

Martha nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I know what you mean. The pace is so slow here, but that's really not a bad thing. I like it, otherwise I wouldn't have chosen this. But, you're right," she added, "it can be hard to transition back from one to the other."

"When I was there, I did a lot of..." Clark's words drifted off. "It's hard to put together what I was feeling because of the ring, versus what was because I was in Metropolis. Does that make any sense?"

"Not to mention what you felt because you were involved with the city's underworld," Martha added.

"Yeah, that's a point, too." They had spent months now carefully dancing around anything with the semblance of blame or guilt. It felt strange to be talking finally about what it was like.

"Do you miss it?" She turned his question around on him.

"The dark underbelly?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Any of it."

"It's like in English class, we're reading all this stuff on Modernism and they keep talking about the so-called 'dark underbelly' of society. I realized that it's different for me now because I've lived it. The trouble is that I can't say anything about it, and no one else in the class has a clue what they're talking about."

"I understand you're doing the best you can. And it's hard. Men died over it."

"Mom." He gave her a pained look. As if he'd been able to think about anything else since the Sheriff carted away the body impaled on the pitchfork. The number of people who had died because of him haunted his dreams nightly.

Martha hesitated, then continued, "I know it's difficult, Clark. Especially with the need to protect your gifts. On one hand, they were criminals; but on the other, part of us knows they were human beings, too."

A long moment passed before he spoke again. "I do."

She turned her head, questioning. They were stopped at the last red light before the town square. Clark's gaze was turned inward, but his feelings were written clearly upon his face.

"I miss it. Not the hurting people. I don't want to hurt anyone ever again. But I miss...the excitement." He laughed mirthlessly. "It felt so good to finally feel like I was...." Free, he wanted to say; but he couldn't tell her that. It would cut too deep. "Cool," he finished lamely.

"Oh, Clark." She patted his hand on the seat between them.

"You're still afraid I'm going to leave again, aren't you?"

She pursed her lips as she accelerated, looking for a place to park. "The hardest thing for any mother is letting her baby go. But I've got to let you live your own life, son. You have to make your own choices."

"You know what? I'm kind of scared to go back to Metropolis," he watched his mother nod. This was the most he'd confessed since his father had brought him home. "What if people recognize me? What if I can't go to college without people remembering me from this summer? I hurt so many people. I wish..." Clark sighed. "I just don't know what I should do."

"I'm afraid there aren't any easy answers to that, sweetheart. I'm sure we'll find a way for it to work out, though, because you've got to get on with your life. Besides," she said, as she pulled the truck up in front of Fordman's, "you've got over a year before it becomes a real issue. And we know that a lot can happen in a year."

* * *

"How could you think you'd simply get to walk out of here after what you did?" The voice behind him was silken, too intimate. The air around them reeked with transience and quivered with the muffled beat of house music. "Tell me, Clark."

"My name is Kal." Clark stood, hands pressed high against the black cinderblock wall, his feet well apart.

"Stop the charade, Clark." So close now. "Don't you know that you're completely transparent?"

He realized now that he couldn't move, but played at false bravado. "What do you want from me?"

A cool fingertip touched the nape of his neck and slid slowly down the bumps of his spine. His skin was flushed, hot, damp with sweat. The touch fell away at the waistline of his jeans. His shirt had been lost to the dance floor.

"I only want what's mine, Clark."

The hand was moving lower now, caressing his hips, sliding into the crack, pressing gently upwards. Clark shuddered. The other hand came around to stroke his belly, softly at first, then moving in circles, digging in fingernails, grazing slowly up his sides.

"Why would you think that I'm yours?" Clark gritted the words out, ignoring the strain of his erection as best he could.

"Because you owe me. You think the things you've done just go away on their own? We both know you're not that stupid. People are dead because of you, Clark, all because you ran. And the blood seems to be on anyone's hands but yours."

"I...." he stopped, knowing there was no defense, no escape. "What do you want me to do?" The nails on his torso scraped pink lines. The fingers stroked his body hair. A thumb ground across his nipples, rough and precise.

"Do what anyone would in your situation." The hand between his legs touched his balls through the denim.

"Which is?" he stammered through his helpless gasp.

"Everything I want." The words were spoken against the back of his neck. The lips were hot compared to the coolness of the fingertips on his chest. Clark felt a hard thrust into his hip. One hand pushed up into him, and the other clamped down tight on his cock. Lex bit down, hard. Clark bucked into his hand and came with a cry.

He cried out as he jolted awake, then swore at the sticky mess still shooting into his boxers.

"Clark? You ok, son?" He could hear his dad rummaging around in the hall closet.

"Uh, yeah. Everything's fine," he called through the door. God, what timing.

Clark lay in bed for a few minutes, making the aftershocks last. When it was over, he peeled off the thin fabric and wiped up the come. That had been intense. So intense he could still feel the teeth on his neck. He rubbed his hands over his chest, moaning softly, then shook himself as he recalled the dream. What was he going to do? His mom was right, as usual. There was no easy answer, no matter how much he wished otherwise.

He wrapped himself in a towel from the basket of laundry he hadn't put away yet and opened the door. The first thing he saw was his father in the hallway, wrestling with a large plastic tub.

"Dad? What are you doing?"

"Sorting out the winter bedding. Your mother went to town to get her hair done and left us a list of things to do in the house."

"Great. Nothing like a Saturday with extra chores."

"The sooner you start, the sooner we'll be done."

"Yeah, I know," he yawned. "I'll be out in a minute."

Clark closed the bathroom door and stared into the mirror. He hadn't had a wet dream in ages. He wasn't sure if he'd ever had one with everything rolled up together like that. Himself, paying for his sins. In the back room of a gay bar. In Metropolis. With Lex freezing him in place, with his voice, his touch. Owning him.

Clark brushed his teeth, peed, and stepped into the shower. The dream was so confusing. It wasn't right. It wasn't the kind of atonement Clark wanted to make at all. But if not, then why was he dreaming about it? And could it really be atonement if you got to choose your method of payment? What if you liked it? That sort of defeated the idea of penance, didn't it? Or did it?

Thinking about Lex was confusing, too. He remembered every time Lex had ever touched him, from his first waking clutch on the riverbank to their last hug goodbye a few weeks ago. He wanted more, craved it in a way that none of his other fantasies could begin to approach.

Lex was the only person who could understand what it was like to have his whole world crash down on him. But Clark couldn't tell him that, and keeping everything secret was killing him. He washed his hair and scrubbed his body. Already, he wanted to come again, but not with his father less than ten feet away. Sometimes x-ray vision was a total drag.

* * *

Clark set an enormous plateful of BLT sandwiches down on the table, then ran to call down the cellar steps to his father. They'd worked all morning on preparing the house and farm for the post-harvest season, which today meant pulling cold weather gear out of storage and packing up everything that wouldn't be needed again until spring. Clark super-sped through the regular farm chores, letting his father handle the tedium of deciding what needed to be put away and what keep out.

Clark was pouring orange juice when Jonathan came into the kitchen.

"Well, I see you made lunch!" he said, surprised.

"Yeah, I'm starving. I think I made enough for us both." Clark grinned.

"I hope so,' Jonathan laughed, looking at the stacks of sandwiches heaped on the plate.

"I cut some apple slices, too. Let me get a bowl." Clark was back in milliseconds.

"Are you getting faster?" Jonathan leaned back to give him a farsighted stare.

"Yeah, I think I am."

"Did your feet even touch the ground just now?"

"Well, yeah, when I got the bowl out of the cabinet, but the rest?" Clark hesitated. "Honestly, I don't know."

"You can't tell?" he asked, digging into his lunch.

"Not really. With short distances, it's kind of like I'm just pushing that way, then I'm there. Wasn't it like that for you when you...brought me back?"

"To be honest, I don't remember it very clearly. Mainly, I was just intent on getting to you. Besides, whatever Jor-El did was probably the most unpleasant thing I've ever felt."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'd do it again if I had to. I'm just saying that I don't think human beings are physically meant to have those kinds of powers."

Clark considered this as he took another bite. He loved using his heat vision to get the bacon just right. "So you don't remember it clearly because your body doesn't want you to?"

"Or because humans just aren't wired to process so much at once," Jonathan answered. "Have you had any more floating episodes?"

"A couple. One night I fell asleep in the loft and woke up in the rafters."

"That's quite a fall," Jonathan said through a mouthful.

"I didn't fall."

"You didn't?"

"I just.... Okay, remember Jor-El's necklace? I mean the charm that acted as his diary?"

"Of course I remember, Clark. Why?"

"Well, in it, there was a memory of him and Lana's great aunt together...." Clark trailed off, realizing he'd already said more than he intended.

Jonathan cleared his throat. "And?"

"And he told her he wasn't from Earth, Dad. And then he proved it. He picked her up and floated high up over the cornfield they were parked in."

Jonathan shifted, and got the expression on his face that meant he'd be hunting for an antacid later.

"I could feel how to do it. How to control it."

His father was frowning. "So you've been doing this in the barn?"

"Sometimes. Trying to. I'm not very good at it yet. It's really more like minor levitation right now."

"But you didn't fall when you woke up in the rafters."

"No, I just kind of descended slowly. I couldn't go any other direction, but at least I wasn't crashing into the dirt at nine point eight meters..." Clark cut off his inner science geek.

"Right." Jonathan dug into a second sandwich. "Have you told your mother yet?"

"No. I mean, I can't do anything with it yet, so...."

"I think you should."

"Okay," Clark shrugged. "Actually, she might be really happy about that. She threw a giant fit over the shoes yesterday."

"She told me."

"It's not my fault my feet are so big," Clark whined.

"Should we blame Jor-El for that, too?" Jonathan smirked.

"Actually, in the mirror, he looked a whole lot like me. If I were sent back to 1961, that is."

Jonathan frowned. "You're not him, Clark. I'll grant that your biological parents went to huge lengths to save you. But you're our son."

"I know, Dad."

"Clark..." Jonathan's voice cracked. His eyes finished the sentence for him.

"I'm not going to run away again."

"I can't help but remember how, those first few months, there were times that you would cry like it was the end of the world and nothing we did would settle you. Now that we have a little context...."

"You and Mom did everything you could."

"Yes, we did." His father cleared his throat gruffly. "And I think, all told, we raised you right, even if we made some mistakes along the way."

Clark finished his third sandwich and started in on the apples. "I think I hear a 'but' in there somewhere."

Jonathan grimaced. "Well, that's because there is. Can you tell me where you got the idea that it was all right to bury your pain in that ring?"

"Dad," Clark felt so tense he could break. This conversation would not be happening if his mom were home. Maybe. Although after yesterday, maybe all bets were off with her, too. He swallowed hard. "I know it was wrong. I've already told you how sorry I am."

"I know, and it's okay. I swear to you that it's okay now." Jonathan soothed Clark as he would a spooked horse.

"How can it be okay?" Clark felt like something was ripping inside his chest. "Don't you see? I screwed up worse than anybody. I never really fit in to begin with, and now people look at me like more of a freak than ever."

"No they don't, Clark," his father's voice forced its way through the haze of near hysteria. "But they might be curious what you were doing and why you're so defensive about it. Have you considered that some of your friends might honestly miss you? You should be going out, son. You spend entirely too much time up in that loft of yours."

"I can't do that to them. Lana...."

"Son, Lana's moving on." Jonathan waited for Clark's subdued nod, then went on. "Now, I'm not saying you should date anyone right now, but when was the last time you went out and did something fun with your friends?"

"They have so many expectations, I just don't want to see them unless I have to. It's hard enough pretending everything's okay with them at school."

"That's no way to get through this." Clark sighed and bit into the last apple wedge. Jonathan squinted at him appraisingly and asked, "Did something happen with Lex?"

"Uh, what? No! Why?" Clark realized he'd just crushed the apple slice to pulp.

"Because I haven't seen him since the day he came out here with the deed months ago, and that's as odd for him as a dog having kittens."

"No, I haven't seen him."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"Is anything going on I need to be concerned about?"

"Nooo." Clark tried to mask his embarrassment with confusion.

"Listen, son. The one thing Lex asked for when he...saved our farm...was to be a part of this family. It hasn't been easy for me to put aside the past, but your mother can be a very determined woman."

"True." Yesterday's conversation was still fresh in his mind.

"And considering everything we've all been through, she's right. I still don't want him knowing your secret, but I have to accept him as a member of this family." Jonathan sat back, creasing the folds of his paper napkin. "Now, I assume he's been busy putting his career back on track, but I want to make sure nothing else happened I don't know about."

"Uh, no. Nothing I know of." This was insane. Since when did his dad actively push him toward Lex?

"Then why is your mother doing his produce delivery today?"

"She's what? But that's my...." Clark frowned at him. "I thought you said she was getting her hair done."

"Nobody's hair takes that long, Clark. She had several hours worth of errands to run."

"Oh. Right." Clark's face fell.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Clark..." he used that tone.

"It's just that yesterday in the truck, she and I talked a little about Metropolis. And I don't want her to tell Lex. I mean, after all he went through. I should have...." Clark's voice dropped to a whisper. "I should have been there."

"Son," Jonathan's face filled with compassion. "You couldn't have saved him. He was in the middle of the ocean. Even you can't walk on water."

"Actually."

"That's why you're trying to learn to float?"

"If I could fly..."

Jonathan smiled. "Maybe one day you'll be able to."

Clark smiled back at him, face shining with dreams.

"But you still can't save everybody."

Clark deflated.

"I'm sorry, but it's true. And what's more, Clark, is that not everybody either needs, or wants, to be saved. Remember Metropolis?"

"I sure didn't want to be. Except that deep down, I did."

"No one really has a right to force it on another person, even though that's exactly what I did. But then, you're my son. That gives me a little license."

Clark understood what his dad was trying to say, even if he didn't really agree. Saving people didn't feel like a moral call, it was just what he did. But Clark didn't want to open that can of worms with his father, so he simply said, "Thank you."

"Always. It's what family is for."

Clark nodded. That he saw more clearly than ever.

"So, back to Lex. Did you two have a fight?"

Clark shook his head. He really didn't want to talk about this.

"You just both mysteriously stopped hanging out together at the same time?"

"Well, mostly, yeah. He's been in the city a lot. He emails me his schedule sometimes, but...." Clark shoved his fingers through his hair and let out a heavy sigh. He looked across the table at his father, blinking back pools of guilt.

Jonathan held his gaze and repeated, "_Nothing_ you could have done would have saved him. You have to stop beating yourself up over it."

Clark didn't say he could have stopped the wedding, that he could have told Lex he loved him, that he could have begged him not to go. He didn't say that Lex had sworn he'd do anything for him, and if he'd only asked, Lex would have, Clark knew it. Instead, he murmured, "I could have made a difference."

Jonathan shook his head. "No, son. But it's a moot point now, anyway, isn't it? You have to put it behind you, stop hiding, and face your fears."

"But I feel so awful."

"You're depressed, Clark. That's normal."

"You think I'm depressed?"

"Yes I do. I know you better than anybody, and you're acting more like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders than ever before in your life." Jonathan leaned into the table. "But you don't, Clark. It's just the weight of having to learn how to forgive yourself for a bad decision."

Ten years ago, Clark would've run to his father with a desperate hug. Now he settled for a long look and a small nod. His dad almost understood. It wasn't everything, but it was close enough for this moment. And Clark wasn't ready for everything yet.

Jonathan raised his eyebrows and made his patented 'Father' face. "You're going to be fine, Clark. I have faith in you."

Clark swallowed and forced himself to ask, "What if I screw up again? Like before?"

"Then I'll be hurt, upset, angry, disappointed, and very sad, but we'll find a way to deal with it. No matter what. That's what family means." He gave Clark another pointed look.

"Okay, so you want me to call Lex."

"And the rest of your friends. And I want you to wait until after your mother gets home," his father said, beginning to clear the table. "Otherwise she'll be upset that I talked with you about this before she did."

"I have to go through this all over again with her?"

Jonathan laughed. "You make it sound like torture!"

Clark sighed. "I wish this were easier."

"If wishes were horses..." Jonathan clapped his hand on Clark's shoulder.

"You know, that's a whole lot of stalls to muck," Clark said with a smile. "But I bet we'd make such a fortune as Kent Stables, we could pay someone else to do it."


End file.
